Roguetitan
New member
sorry I can't help you there,the P 90 series are incidentally some that I have yet to try.
sorry I can't help you there,the P 90 series are incidentally some that I have yet to try.
Light
New member
MOSTLY a Strat or a Tele, back in the day into a Marshall, but when I saw them out in Seattle a few weeks back he was using a Custom Audio Electronics head, and what looked like about a dozen Mesa 1X12's. Last summer when I saw them, though, it was a Marshall.
Oh, and always a ton of processing involved. I don't think Andy Summers ever heard something where he didn't say, "some chorus would be good on that."
(And I say that as a HUGE fan.)
As for my opinion on amps, get one that is as simple a design as possible, with as few bells and whistles as possible. My favorite amp has two knobs - Volume, and boost (a foot-switchable boost circuit). But then, I made my amp, so I made it to sound the way I wanted it to sound. Tubes are good, transistors are bad, and micro chips have millions of transistors so they are millions of times worse. Modeling never sounds good.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Roguetitan
New member
shielding cancels hum and line interfearance noises.
Roguetitan
New member
Absolutley agree with this one 100%
monkie
New member
Does all guitarist use aluminum foils for shielding, or are there actually some materials made for that? How affective is shielding? Does it cancels hum and line interference noises completely? How affective is aluminum foil compared to other materials that are made for just that purpose (if there's any)?
Light
New member
Actually, it BLOCKS interference, which is of course the cause of a lot of hum.
Look up the term Faraday Cage - that's what were talking about here. And I do not advise following the Guitar Nuts (or whatever they are called) method, as they do a couple of things that are a bad idea. It's pretty simple. You need to line the entire control cavity (and, if you want, the pickup cavities as well) with a conductive material - shielding paint is the easiest (and if you are doing a lot of guitars - which you're not - the cheapest), and the quality difference between shielding paint, aluminum foil, and copper foil is not measurable, much less audible. You need to ground the conductive material. That's it. And you absolutely do NOT need or want a capacitor between the electronics and the bridge ground.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Roguetitan
New member
aluminum foil works well for shielding but copper shielding is perferred because it works better and can be soldered.
if properly shielded you can eleminate most noise but you will never completley eleminate all because if you use FX like distortion or overdrive this will produce hu, as well but shielding will eleminate most humming. you cam buy copper shielding material from www.stewmac.com
Light
New member
No, it does not. It improves things, but single coil pickups are always going to have some hum. Always. You can shield a lot of the electronics, but the pickups themselves are better antennas than everything else in the guitar put together. And of course, by the very nature of the instrument, you are amplifying the RF being picked up. But shielding can make a marked improvement. Just don't expect miracles.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Light
New member
No it doesn't, and soldering doesn't matter. Those are both among those internet "factoids" that piss me off so much.
Really and truly, a Faraday cage is a very forgiving thing. Aluminum foil is cheaper, but copper is easier to work with. But you will never hear a difference between them. Shielding paint is easier and cheaper than both - though it's only cheaper if you are doing 100 guitars, not one.
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
monkie
New member
How do you ground the conductive material? What does a capacitor do and why don't you want a capacitor between the electronics and the bridge ground? I asked since you brought that up and because I'm curious to know why.
Seems like fun. What kind of materials and tools would I need to do shielding? Any soldering involved? I've never done any soldering before?
Light
New member
As long as the pots are making metal to metal contact with your shield (whatever material it may be), it is grounded.
The reason I don't worry about gluing aluminum foil in is that if the glue has ANY insulating properties (which, in general, it doesn't), all you are doing is making a very low value capacitor, which will easily pass the RF interference (which, as it causing a hum, is by definition AC, and caps pass AC).
The reason you don't want the cap is it serves no function, and is a total waste of time. The reason I bring it up is the guy at guitar nuts has this (completely wrong) theory that it can keep you from getting electrocuted by your amp - which would be fine except that the only way your amp can electrocute you is if you are stupid enough to bypass the fuse, you happen to have a wire come unsoldered and fall against the chassis, AND for some reason the circuit breaker in your house fails. It is a stupid, useless waste of time.
Tools? Some aluminum foil, a can of spray adhesive (3M 77 is good), and more patience than I have for that particular job. Plus whatever screwdrivers and sockets you need to remove the hardware from your guitar. Oh, and a spoon helps to smooth things out, but you can just use your thumb.
I use a can of shielding paint and a brush, and use foil only for pickguards and cover plates (i.e., the flat stuff where it is easy to use).
Light
"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
Roguetitan
New member
here is a step by step pictoral procedure for shielding a strat with shielding tape.
http://areyouexperienced.net/shielding-70s-stratocaster-1.htm
http://areyouexperienced.net/shielding-70s-stratocaster-1.htm
danw
cheap bastard
Here's an issue I hadn't thought of: let's make sure we're dealing with hum. Is the noise from your pickups always the same note, or are we just talking about the guitar sounding nasty when you've got the volume turned up? Do you hear it when you're not playing or when you're playing loudest? I'm asking because you said in the other thread that your sound got noisier when you lowered the strings. I can't see where that would make hum louder, but it would make your signal louder. I wonder if you already have hot pickups and what you're getting is clipping from the software.
monkie
New member
Very good point. Actually, the noise level depends on certain distortion sounds. It might be the software. With a clean sound, you wouldn't even hear any hum or noise. But for a distortion sound,you can hear some noise when you play lead the notes and it doesn't sound as clean as it should.
Farview
Well-known member
That's because when you use a distorted sound, you have turned up the noise as well as the signal. Single coil pickups are just noisey. Borrow a guitar with humbuckers and see if there is a difference.
DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Jeez, dude, your list of tones there is all over the map.
My advice? I LOVE the classic strat setup, but based on that list what you're looking for is not a guitar that sounds like a Strat. If your guitar is routed so it can take this (and the easiest way to check if you're not afraid to take a screwdriver to your guitar is the next time you do a string change, simply take off all the strings, unscrew the pickguard, and peek under to see if it's routed for a neck and bridge humbucker under the pickguard), I'd just buy a new pickguard altogether, and wire it up with two pickups, a neck humbucker and a bridge humbucker. I'd then do the Joe Satriani thing, and install a push-pull tone pot (you might as well switch to a single volume and single tone knob while you're at it) such that you can "coil tap" the humbuckers to make them sound like singlecoils when you pull the switch.
Most of those artists you mention are known for using humbuckers, so this will get you in the right ballpark, but also by tapping the humbuckers you'll still be able to get singlecoil sounds to cover the material of the few who don't. A H-H setup wired with a three-way pickup selector and a push/pull coil tap on the tone pot is actually one of my favoorite pickup combinations, for simplicity and versatility.
After that, grab a small tube marshall combo, probably. The Marshall DSL401 isn't half bad. Alternately, if you have space to burn, well, I thought the DSL401 sounded WAY better when I briefly ran one through a Mesa Rectifier 2x12, so you could grab a DSL50 head and a closed back 2x12 - I like Mesa, but there's plenty of options.
But, in short, most of those guys are known for some sort of a humbucker into some sort of a Marshall, and most of the rest you could probably fudge it with that rig.
My advice? I LOVE the classic strat setup, but based on that list what you're looking for is not a guitar that sounds like a Strat. If your guitar is routed so it can take this (and the easiest way to check if you're not afraid to take a screwdriver to your guitar is the next time you do a string change, simply take off all the strings, unscrew the pickguard, and peek under to see if it's routed for a neck and bridge humbucker under the pickguard), I'd just buy a new pickguard altogether, and wire it up with two pickups, a neck humbucker and a bridge humbucker. I'd then do the Joe Satriani thing, and install a push-pull tone pot (you might as well switch to a single volume and single tone knob while you're at it) such that you can "coil tap" the humbuckers to make them sound like singlecoils when you pull the switch.
Most of those artists you mention are known for using humbuckers, so this will get you in the right ballpark, but also by tapping the humbuckers you'll still be able to get singlecoil sounds to cover the material of the few who don't. A H-H setup wired with a three-way pickup selector and a push/pull coil tap on the tone pot is actually one of my favoorite pickup combinations, for simplicity and versatility.
After that, grab a small tube marshall combo, probably. The Marshall DSL401 isn't half bad. Alternately, if you have space to burn, well, I thought the DSL401 sounded WAY better when I briefly ran one through a Mesa Rectifier 2x12, so you could grab a DSL50 head and a closed back 2x12 - I like Mesa, but there's plenty of options.
But, in short, most of those guys are known for some sort of a humbucker into some sort of a Marshall, and most of the rest you could probably fudge it with that rig.
monkie
New member
Thanks. Sounds like a clever idea. But if I change to a humbucker then I would obviously need a new pickguard; any you could recommend? Do I have to replace all three of my current pickups or just one of them?
danw
cheap bastard
The hotrails that people have suggested is a humbucker that fits in a single-coil slot, I believe, if you just want to try replacing one.
ocnor
Lord Of The Thighs
You do not need to change your pick guard if you get single coil sized humbuckers like the ones that I recommended earlier in the thread. Don't let the low price fool you these pickups sound really good. They also come in white, black, or cream. http://www.guitarpartsonline.com/product_info.php?products_id=79
Roguetitan
New member
YEP!
Dems some good sounding pups
or you can get this set of 3 calibrated from Guitar fetish.com
front
back
they are also labled in order so you dont make any mistakes
I just built a strat for a buddy of mine using this set of GFS pickups and it sounds awesome.
they are avalable in creme and black. they are like around $65.00 per set with shipping, which is not a bad price for good tone.